


White as Winter, Not Quite As Clean

by Ryuutchi



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: Bad Decisions, Baking, M/M, Valentine's Day, White Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuutchi/pseuds/Ryuutchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years on, Abe and Mihashi have started college, moved in together... and Abe's still a terrible cook.  But maybe he should thank all those girls who tried to give him chocolates anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White as Winter, Not Quite As Clean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ixchel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixchel/gifts).



> Thanks to Comixologist for letting me bounce ideas and doing beta when I needed a second set of eyes.

* * *

Valentine's Day, 2013

"Abe-kun, Abe-kun, Abe-kun!"

Abe flinched and very carefully did not turn around. It wasn't as though he didn't know who was behind him. Or _what_ , at any rate. He'd been avoiding his fangirls and their chocolates all day. He hitched up his bag on his shoulder and walked a little bit more quickly away from the classroom. If he had his timing right, he could get back to the apartment before Mihashi's last class let out, and he'd have the place all to himself for a blissfully silent half an hour.

"Abe-kun, I made you chocolate. Don't you want some?" The voice this time was in front of him, and he had to stop short to keep from running into her.

He chanced a glance up from where he'd been studiously training his eyes on the cracks in the sidewalk. The girl standing before him couldn't have been out of high school; she was still in her school uniform, although the skirt was hiked up almost scandalously and she wore her hair in pigtails. She held out a small pink package -- it matched her blazer, Abe noted, trying to remain detached from the situation. It _glittered_. He winced.

"No. I don't like sweets," he said, trying to be as blunt as possible. He probably should have felt guilty about the way her face fell, but he had no interest in her or her chocolates, and is was best to get that out of the way. Especially so that he could keep going, and maybe keep from having to deal with--

"Abe-kun, that's so cold! Don't be so heartless."

Abe bit back a groan and half-turned around. It was worse than he had anticipated: no fewer than five different girls, each with mid-size red boxes cradled in their arms stood there, looking at him expectantly. He glanced from them to the high school student and back again, calculating the best trajectory to run in order to avoid them all. Five -- no, six on the north side, one on the south, and no classrooms to duck into. Crap.

"I told you I don't like sweets. Give them to someone else," he said, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt.

"You shouldn't reject a young girl's heart like that," one of the girls in the group said. Her name was Sayaka, he recalled, and she was a member of the cheergirls. He'd seen her hanging around, giving him eyes before and resolutely ignored her, as he had with all of his admirers. "We love you, Abe-kun, and it's okay! We won't be jealous if you take all our chocolate. We've sworn to share you!" The rest of the group nodded along with her words.

Abe looked them all up and down. They looked like ordinary college girls, but there was something in their eyes that terrified him. So he burst into a run, startling a yelp out of the pink high school girl as he dashed around her and down the stairs with all the speed of his many years of baseball training. He didn't stop running until he reached his apartment.

His knee ached and he was out of breath but at least he was safe from... from whatever those girls had planned. His mother's voice whispered in the back of his mind, chiding his for being so callous to innocent young girls, as she had several months before when he'd left for college, but he shrugged it away and went to go collapse on the couch.

He didn't even realize that he'd fallen into a light sleep until a tap on his shoulder startled him into wakefulness. He looked up into Mihashi's bright eyes and they both jerked back.

"A-a-be-kun! Abe-kun, you're awake!" Mihashi stammered, looking from Abe to the floor, to the ceiling, over towards his bag, and then sliding his gaze back towards Abe. "I-I-I, Abe-kun is, did you get a lot of- of chocolates?" Mihashi's forefingers tapped together in a nervous pattern.

Abe shrugged. "A couple of girls tried, but I told them I didn't want any."

Mihashi clenched his hands together. "O-oh. You don't, I mean Abe-kun doesn't want the chocolate I made him?"

"What?" Abe looked up, imagining the perfect, handmade truffles that Mihashi almost certainly had made. "No! Of course I want them. What was I going to tell them? 'Sorry, I like chocolate, but I'm gay?'"

Mihashi made a sound that might have been a scandalized squeak or a laugh, but either way, he gave Abe the chocolates.

* * *

  
White Day, 2013

Mihashi had made him chocolates for Valentine's Day, therefore Abe needed to get Mihashi something for White Day. It wasn't that Mihashi was a girl and Abe was his boyfriend -- although he'd finally gotten Mihashi to admit out loud that they maybe, possibly might be boyfriends. It was just that Abe liked Mihashi enough to want to reciprocate for the Valentine's chocolate the way he was supposed to.

So, the morning of the 14th found him up early, out of their shared apartment. He'd spent the last few days haunting stores that advertised White Day presents, pouring over displays of cookies, jewelry, marshmallows, chocolates and even, in one, memorable moment that he really wished he could have taken back, ducking into a store that advertised gifts, only to find that they were selling white lingerie. While he was mostly certain that they had sizes that would fit Mihashi in the store, and, if Abe was being honest with himself, the idea of Mihashi in white thigh-highs and matching panties was attractive, it probably wasn't a step that Mihashi was ready to take in their relationship. That and he had been chased out of the store by the shop girl.

Thus he was back to haunting the stores alongside the other, similarly worried-looking men who needed quick presents for their girlfriends or mistresses or other women. Abe stopped in the doorway of the small boutique to let a sweaty-faced man clutching a small pouch of overpriced white chocolate rush past. He frowned, trying to decide if the chocolates were worth it or if Mihashi would even like white chocolate.

"Argh!" He rubbed a hand over his forehead, suppressing the urge to pull at his hair. After a moment he stopped suppressing the urge and ran both hands through his hair, tugging at it in irritation.

"Problems?" The shop girl smiled at him, looking sympathetic.

Abe frowned at her, but her smile didn't waver. "I don't know what to get my," he paused, not sure how to describe Mihashi in a way that didn't reveal he was shopping for another man.

He didn't have to. "I understand," she said and smiled brighter. Abe felt like he might be going blind looking at it. "What did she get you for Valentine's Day?"

"Homemade chocolate," Abe said, staring down at the cases of candy as though he could make a present just by sheer force of his gaze.

"Homemade, huh? She must like things that come from the heart." She looked at him with an intensity that belied the cheery smile. "Well, I don't normally say this, but you seem like the kid of guy who wouldn't do good with a bought present anyway. Have you thought about making something yourself? I'll bet she'd appreciate it, no matter what you make."

Abe paused in his perusal of a case of liqueur-filled truffles. She was right. It felt like every time he thought about buying things, the idea of the present ended up feeling trite in comparison to his feelings. So why not?

Because, whispered a quiet voice in his head, you can't cook. He told the voice firmly to shut up and asked the shop girl which cakes she thought were a good choice.

"Winter cake," she said promptly. "It's cute, white and not that difficult."

He thanked her, bought a cherry cordial for himself, and headed to the bookstore. If he was going to bake a cake, he needed a recipe. And he could _too_ bake. How hard could it be? Baking was all chemistry, and he was decent in science.

With that in mind, he stepped into the bookstore, asked the clerk where the cookbooks were and stepped out with an armload of books with names like "Pastry Baking for Morons", "Gourmet Pastries in the French Style", "Gems of Patisseries" and "Answer Your Questions About Baking Cakes".

They all had the same basic recipe for winter cake: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, strawberries, whipped cream. His apartment lacked most of them, so on his way home, Abe stopped to grab them.

"All-purpose flour is the same as cake flour, right?" he asked himself, before shrugging and tossing the all-purpose flour into his basket. If it wouldn't work for cake, it wouldn't be 'all-purpose', would it?

He also grabbed the smallest eggs he could find. Mihashi had used the last of their dozen, and eggs were expensive.

On his way to the register, he stopped to get some cream, and frowned at the case. Half and half? Heavy cream? Light cream? Whipping cream? Abe nearly screamed in frustration, but, instead, just grabbed one of each, on the assumption that one of them would work properly.

He bought the groceries and headed home, to finally spread out his research -- or, well, recipes, on the on the counter. Five of the recipes called for heavy cream, three of them called for whipping cream, and another two just said 'whipped cream'. And then were were the strawberries. Halfed, sliced, cut? He glared at his half-formed graphs and tried to figure out what 'sifting' flour meant, and whether he had to do it once, twice or three times.

Abe huffed and gave up on the graphs that lay scattered on the kitchen counter. This was just too difficult. He'd have to actually try his hand at it and see what happened. He gathered up his supplies, set the most likely-looking recipe out where he could easily read it, and set to mixing, whipping and otherwise mangling his ingredients. After a while, everything seemed to click, and Abe began to feel like maybe, just maybe he could make something that Mihashi would enjoy. He smiled.

"Why are, What are you doing in the kitchen, Abe-kun?" Mihashi asked, sounding utterly shell-shocked.

Abe stopped pouring the batter for a second and his hand twitched, sending a large glob onto the counter instead of the pan it was meant to go in. Mihashi wasn't meant to be home for another hour yet! He grabbed a furtive glance at the kitchen clock and grimaced when he realized he'd been cooking for much longer than he'd thought. It took him another few moments to realize that Mihashi wasn't really looking at him, but was instead staring in horror at the kitchen.

Abe wanted to grumble that it wasn't that bad, but, well. There was flour all over the floor from when he'd been trying to sift it with a makeshift colander and he'd spilled it all over the floor. And the spatters of white dotted every shelf, from when he'd lifted the mixer from the whipped cream without turning it off. And, of course big drops of batter seemed to decorate most of the exposed counter space. At least, the counter space that was't already stained with strawberry juice.

"A-a-ah! Abe-kun! The batter!" Mihashi yelped and Abe glanced down just in time to keep most of the batter in the cake tin as it, overfull, nearly slid off the counter.

Abe cursed, and shoved the pan into he oven with more force than necessary. "Sorry, I," he paused and looked around the kitchen. "Happy White Day," he offered with a lackluster smile.

Mihashi smiled too, a little, wan thing, and went to go put his school bag away.

They didn't talk much during the intervening forty-five minutes. Abe cleaned up some of the mess, and Mihashi cleaned up more of it. Abe tried not to pay attention to the way his stomach clenched with embarrassment or disappointment.

When the cake timer finally went off, Abe let Mihashi take it out of the oven. "Abe-kun! I-it's beautiful!" Mihashi set it on the (slightly less dirty now) counter and beamed at it.

The cake was lopsided, very clearly so, with one side at least half an inch below the other. But it was warm and golden, and looked very tempting. "Mihashi," Abe said after a moment's hesitation, "Will you help me frost it?"

Mihashi turned and grinned a big, happy, very real grin. "Of course! But, we can't do that until it cools down."

So they spent the next hour feeding each other leftover strawberries and kissing. And when it came time to frost the cake, Mihashi only let Abe carry he bowls of ingredients.

But Abe still felt like he had made the best White Day present in the world. Especially since, after devouring a slice of cake Mihashi turned that smile back on him, snuggled against his chest and said "Th-thank you, Abe-kun."

**Author's Note:**

> Winter cake is another name for the Japanese strawberry shortcake, recipes for which can be found [here](http://www.lafujimama.com/2010/07/japanese-strawberry-shortcake/) and [here](http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2007/03/japanese-strawberry-shortcake.html)


End file.
